Page 12 - Cybersecurity Career Guide, 4th Edition

artificial intelligence
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Battling Cyber Threats With AI
AI is a double-edged sword for cybersecurity experts.
On a Friday afternoon in 2019, a British energy company execu- tive got a call from his CEO ask- ing him to move money to an account in Hungary to pay a bill that was about to come due. As most people do in response to requests from their boss, he got right on the job, transferring over $240,000
to the specified account.
Except the call did not come from his CEO. It came from a voice simulator pro- gram, driven by artificial intelligence, or
AI, that can record, analyze, and reproduce vocal rhythms and intonations to generate an imitation of someone’s voice that is in- distinguishable from reality. Such an AI voice can say whatever the programmer tells it to, even if the actual person never did, or never would, say the same thing.
This kind of AI-enabled simulation, or “deepfake,” can come in audio or video form, and it threatens to wreak havoc in all kinds of situations where people rely on their eyes and ears to tell them what is real or not. And it is just one of the many ways in which cyber criminals use AI as a weapon in their schemes to scam and steal from as many people as often as they can. As one cybersecurity executive
notes, “we need to implement cyber AI for defense before offensive AI becomes really mainstream.”
Cyber criminals use AI, and the ma- chine learning algorithms that power it, to mount digital attacks at speeds and volumes capable of overwhelming con- ventional cybersecurity systems. Besides deepfakes used in phishing campaigns, as described above, AI allows cyber crimi- nals to attack data networks at different spots in different ways, often undetect- ably. They can steal identities by the thousands and automate operations to empty bank accounts, spread malware, and steal valuable data. AI-enabled ex- ploits can even be built to alter their own digital footprints to evade discovery and persist in networks long after an initial attack runs its course.
Cybersecurity Companies
Use AI to Fight Back Cybersecurity companies, however, are also putting AI-enabled protections to work against such AI-enabled attacks. Machine-speed scanning and defense programs can identify and prevent attacks on multiple fronts before they
do meaningful harm. Some detect anomalies in online account activities and prevent theft. Some scan systems for vulnerabilities that human program- mers could never find and execute auton- omous security updates. And some iden- tify attacks in progress and direct defen- sive resources to neutralize threats at speeds vastly greater than any human response could manage.
How Students Can Prepare
For students mapping out a pathway towards a cybersecurity career, the rapid development of AI as a cybersecurity problem means that acquiring knowl-